Tag Archives: seminars

Have a part of your manuscript critiqued by the publisher who publishes Mercedes Lackey, Joe Haldeman and Harry Turtledove amongst many others.

Learn about contract negotiations by the agent who negotiates on behalf of Lois McMaster Bujold, Catherine Asaro and the estate of Robert A. Heinlein.

Get to know all the inside tricks by some of the best and most experienced writers in the genre today, including:

Mike Resnick, who has won more awards than anyone else (living or dead) in short fiction and is the guest of honor at this year’s Worldcon. Kevin J. Anderson with 48 bestsellers and over 23 million copies of books in print. One of the most popular SF writers today. Nancy Kress, multiple award winning author of the ground breaking ‘Beggars in Spain’ (Hugo/Nebula), and an author who is fondly known as ‘The Queen of Novellas’ since every novella she writes appears to get nominated for a major award. Rebecca Moesta, who specializes in the lucrative young adult market and has penned numerous YA bestsellers, including those set in the Star Wars universe.

And as if this wasn’t enough…you get to do all this while on a cruise ship visiting the Bahamas in a classroom limited to only 22 students. Significant discounts are available for early sign-ups.

“Let’s compare prices for traditional ink-press printing, digital PQN (Print Quantity Needed) and POD (Print-On-Demand, one book at a time). We will compare a softcover (perfect bound) 144 page 5.25 x 8.25 book with black text and a four-color cover. These estimates depend on the current prices for paper, labor etc.

1. Press (ink on paper): $1.55 each but you have to print at least 3,000 to get a price this low. So, your print bill will be $4,650.

2. Digital printer (short run): 500 copies for $2.80 each or a print bill of $1,400, or 100 copies for $5.17 each and a print bill of $517. For more details, see The Self-Publishing Manual.

3. POD (single copies): May run $6 to $10 and are often bundled with other services. Print-On-Demand is a good option when a book has run its course, your inventory is exhausted and you still receive orders for a couple of copies a month. Rather than invest in inventory, you can have books made one-at-a-time as needed.

Hardcover: Most books are manufactured with soft covers, called “perfect binding.” In traditional printing, hard or “case” binding runs about $1.00 extra per book. For digital production, the cost for case binding is $1.65 to $3.25 each, depending on the page count (thickness) of the book. Those prices include the hard covers and the dust jackets. Then there is typesetting which most of us do on our computers, book cover design and other pre-press expenses.

Well before and after the book is printed, it has to be promoted with book reviews, news releases and social media networking on Twitter, Google+, FB, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. For a book like the one described here, you should budget about $3,000 to $5,000 to get started. A good portion of your budget will be spent on promoting the book after it is printed.

Why not recording your book on tape, disk and download?
You are not just an author or just a publisher or just a book promoter, you are an information provider. Some of your potential customers commute or travel a lot; they do not have time to read your book. But they do have time to listen to it.

You are an expert in your area. You must dispense your information in many ways: Books, magazine articles, audiotape, video tape, seminars, speeches, and private consulting. All of the messages are the same but the delivery method for each is different. Spoken-word recording is an efficient delivery medium. Use your book as a script and record it word for word.”

More tips for REAL self-publishers can be found in his books, his many books I must say.

Register your publishing business
To be found by other authors and potential customers, add your company to these publishing directories: